Migrants decide to leave Mexico City with or without buses

MEXICO – Thousands of migrants from Central America have decided to leave Mexico City on Friday morning and head to the northern city of Tijuana, opting for a longer but safer route to the US border, announced the organizers of the caravan. The decision was taken Thursday night in a stadium in Mexico City where about 5,000 migrants spent the last few days resting, getting treatment and debating the way forward. Shortly after, caravan representatives met with officials from the local UN office and asked buses to take them to the border. The caravan coordinator, Milton Benitez, told the migrants that they were still waiting for an answer. But later, he told the Associated Press that officials had offered them buses for women and children, but that the organizers had demanded that they be for everyone. United States representatives could not be contacted immediately to confirm. The migrants hoped that buses would arrive Friday morning, but they decided to leave Mexico City when they did not. "My God, let the buses arrive, but otherwise, we'll walk," said Delia Murillo, an 18-year-old single mother, who left her daughter in Honduras because she feared for her safety while hiking. Sending to the badembly in the sports complex in Mexico City, organizer Walter Cuello shouted, "Five o'clock in the morning, Tijuana!" The migrants responded with enthusiastic applause and screams. The plan was to march Friday in the city of Queretaro, in central Mexico. Some migrants doubted that the buses would arrive. "There will be no buses," said Hector Wilfredo Rosales, a 46-year-old electrician from Olancho, Honduras, who was traveling with his 16-year-old son-in-law. "They have often lied to us, but we will walk as we have done so far." Mexico City is more than 600 km from the nearest US border crossing in McAllen, Texas, and caravan in the spring has opted for much longer. Road to Tijuana in the far northwest, across from San Diego. By the time she reached the border, the caravan had only 200 people left. "California is the longest route, but the best border, while Texas is the nearest border, but the worst," Jose Luis Fuentes of the National Lawyers Guild told the badembled migrants. Rosales said that he would have preferred a shorter route "because there are a lot of women with children with us and that it is going to be very difficult". But he approved the decision to leave Mexico City and hoped that people on the way would give them elevators. The migrants said they wanted the buses to take them to the US border because it is too difficult and dangerous to keep walking and hitchhiking. Benitez noted that it would be colder in northern Mexico and that it was not safe for migrants to continue on highways, where drug cartels are common. "It's a humanitarian crisis and they do not know it," Benitez said as the group arrived at the US office. Central American migrants began their difficult journey to the United States more than three weeks ago and were transformed by President Donald Trump into a campaigning problem during the mid-term elections in the United States. Mexico offered migrants asylum, asylum or work visas, and his government said 2,697 temporary visas had been issued to individuals and families to protect them while they waited for the process. 45 days to obtain a more permanent status. But most want to continue to the United States. Authorities say most refused to stay in Mexico and only a small number of them agreed to return to their home country. About 85% of migrants come from Honduras, while others come from Central American countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Wednesday, a bus left Mexico City to bring back 37 people to their home country. It has already been reported that migrants on the caravan were missing, although this is often because they get into trucks stuck on different routes, leaving them strayed. The US human rights agency said its office in Mexico had filed a report with state prosecutors in Puebla, about two buses borrowed by migrants during the last stage of their trip to Mexico at the beginning of the week and whose fate is unknown. In Mexico City, migrants received medical care and humanitarian badistance, including food, water, diapers and other basic necessities. They searched the stacks of clothes and grabbed boxes of milk for the children. Marlon Ivan Mendez, a farm worker from Copan, Honduras, queued to buy shoes to replace the worn fangs he has used since leaving his country three weeks ago. He said he was gone because gangs were asking him for rent to live in his own home. Mendez said it was not fair that people talk about migrants as criminals or bad guys with gang members among them. "It's not just that good people pay for sinners," he said.